Shouty Teenager on XBOX – Solutions?

My lad likes to play XBOX with his mates. I think this is healthy. He also plays rugby a lot so is very active, but when at home he likes to play online games with his pals. The problem is he gets really, really shouty. I know they all do but I WFH, his sister studies a lot and policing it is hard work and results in lots more shouting.

We currently have a yellow card, red card system then Wi-Fi is disabled to XBOX. I would like to remove humans from this and automate the process, I think it would help him learn quicker!

So, with basic ITTT skills, maybe a smart speaker, smart plug, maybe some low level spend on tech, is there anything creative I could do? Would ideally like a warning light first.

I know it looks like I am trying to automate parenting, I’m not. I just think it will be a fun little project that will help him learn to stop screaming at his mates, quickly.

Would taking away his headset work instead of shutting off the wifi? In (no-headset) space no one can hear you scream (shout)

Is this not the same as talking loudly  to someone when the music is loud in headphones?
Make him turn down is headphones to a lower level.

Get him a single sided headset.

A headset with just one ear piece will probably help.  Or just burn the bloody Xbox 😉

If you wanted to get super geeky you could probably knock something up with Arduino (https://www.arduino.cc/)

Some sort of decibel meter hooked up to a controller with a yellow and red LED, as well as the wifi router and a buzzer. Program it so that the first ‘strike’ results in a flashing yellow led and buzzer, second strike a red light and wifi is disabled for x number of minutes / hours.

Edit: https://www.instructables.com/Arduino-Decibel-Meter/

Line his walls with acoustic foam?

Instigate a new rule; 3 red cards in a year results in “I’m taking a drill through your Xbox” rule?

Aren’t electric shocks supposed to be effective in these kind of scenarios? 

All good suggestions, especially the electric shock!

He just gets very excitable when using it and I understand why Dad turning off the wi-fi is triggering. 

easy fix, sound limiter that cuts the power.  Venues have them installed to stop us DJ’s from canning it, the box cuts the power if a certain DB is hit

He just gets very excitable when using it and I understand why Dad turning off the wi-fi is triggering.

But automating the process won’t be? I think all that will happen is that you’ll be fishing bits of Arduino out of the bin.

My mate has been through two years of this..

not his kid..

the bloody neighbours… all living off benefits and the son plays xbox through the night, subsequently making my mate and his family’s life an absolute misery…

Definitely need to train the lad out of this behaviour, voices at night can travel

On the Xbox there are gaming headsets and chat headsets. The former routes all sounds to the headset, the latter just voice and the game audio is via the TV. A chat headset will only cover one ear and so will allow him to hear himself better, but of course you’ve then got a different noise to contend with.

There is also – on mine at least – the ability to change the level of your own feedback from voice to ear. Maybe increasing that would help?

Surely the easy answer is blocking the Xbox from access to the router if he breaks the rules?

Surely the easy answer is blocking the Xbox from access to the router if he breaks the rules?

Isn’t that what he’s already doing? Or did I misunderstand?

The only off the shelf Home automation/zigbee solution i could find was commercial and expensive/subscription only.

So i switched his playstation off a couple of times, now i just need to look at him and it’s all but silence the rest of the day.

There is also – on mine at least – the ability to change the level of your own feedback from voice to ear. Maybe increasing that would help?

There are some interesting possibilities here.

Once you have solved the problems of a) inventing the tech setup and b) protecting it from interference, you can do fun* things every time the noise goes above a certain level, such as incrementally increasing/decreasing the:

Own voice feedback volume

Controller sensitivity

Screen brightness

Controller vibration

Room lighting

etc etc

(* from your point of view. Not his.)

Its a while ago now but our son had this issue.  Fortunately he learned quickly.  The embarrassment of me coming in to talk to him/his friends was more powerful than the wifi!

We tried no headphones, but it just meant I could hear the shite the others were saying too!  I wonder if bone conduction headphones (available with mic) are a better solution – more spacial connection to his own environment, less ear damage and nobody else has to put up with it?

Being a geek I quite like the idea of wiring in a sensor that picks up the noise, alerts then kills the power!   As he’s also a geek he’s just bypass it and we’d be in a different disciplinary battle.  I suspect the answer is to get him to design and agree the rules/solution.  if he’s battling you for applying rules that he is aware of (too noisy when I’m working I will kill the wifi that I pay for) the issue is not the headset, the Xbox or the game.  Its time for a serious conversation about how the food gets on the table, the mortgage gets paid and his middleclass toys get paid for; all you want is him to moderate his behaviour.  He’ll sulk and be a dick – he’s a teenager.

One of my colleagues had issues with household noise on his calls and just covered the walls of his office in accoustic foam.  It looks rather cool – like he’s in a recording studio or doing a pro-pod-cast.  Small room wasn’t that expensive to do.  That won’t solve your problem – which is not actually a noise issue.

If you’re going to go nerd, get the noise level linked to his ping/network speed to the router.

“Every time you go over x decibels you’ll lose y amount of network speed…”

Easy with the eero app and router, just hit the pause button. not automated though

Line his walls cupboard under the stairs with acoustic foam?

Later today ..

😃

Sounds like a great project for someone who is already a tinkerer/hacker or keen to learn but probably not otherwise given that as already said it’s ultimately not really a “noise” problem and this would be more of a problem solving/technical exercise than the proper solution!! Could get the lad involved too although he may not appreciate the irony of that 😂

As for actually doing it – a quick google shows off-the-shelf options v expensive. You could make something yourself for £10-15 even using plug-n-play components aimed at the educational market (no soldering). Arduino not really suitable as most don’t have WiFi built-in but there’s something very similar – much better in fact – called an ESP32 which does.

To prevent interference you could have your smart speaker broadcast a short tone at irregular intervals which if not picked up at the appropriate decibel level triggers the shutoff as you can assume the device has been tampered with!

This is in ideal application for Home Assistant as all the infrastructure is in place already, you just have to connect the parts together rather than re-invent the wheel several times. But huge learning curve and totally pointless unless you want to get into it anyway!

could you record him, he might find hearing himself so embarrassing that he calms down? ( my son is also shouty but does calm down when told / threatened with the router being switched off )

Get a pair of kitchen scissors.

Walk up to him and theatrically cut the head phone cable, whilst using slight of hand magic to unplug the actual cable from the box
Or just cut the cable.
At least he will know what to spend his Xmas money on

We have this from time to time. If he doesn’t take the first hint then I’ll wander into his room, making sure his mic is live, then ask him if ‘that problem has cleared up and did the cream help’? Or something in that embarrassing theme 😈

It seems to work and peace reigns for a while!

Surely the easy answer is blocking the Xbox from access to the router if he breaks the rules?

This is what I’m doing

Threaten to format the hard drive if he doesn’t sort his shit out

Threaten to format the hard drive if he doesn’t sort his shit out

Wrong thread?

Toilet with a powerful flush – recommendations please

The problem is he gets really, really shouty. I know they all do but I WFH, his sister studies a lot and policing it is hard work and results in lots more shouting.

My next door neighbours teenager does this.
I wish they’d switch off his WiFi.

Screaming **** off at the console, opponent or whatever as loud as he can. You can hear his gob from outside the front of the house or rear.

If that was me when I was growing up there would be a warning then the game confiscated.

Op, you don’t live next door do you?

My next door neighbours teenager does this.I wish they’d switch off his WiFi.

Screaming **** off at the console, opponent or whatever as loud as he can. You can hear his gob from outside the front of the house or rear.

Same!

Really annoying when you want to sit out in the garden on a summer evening and you can just hear this brat screaming at the gigantic telly in his room

Is it happy or angry shouting?

Son becomes a teenager tomorrow but I am sure he acts similarly😃

It is annoying but is he not just enjoying himself?

I know it looks like I am trying to automate parenting, I’m not. I just think it will be a fun little project

later that day……

Our two can be heard upstairs at the moment, they’re not too bad currently but it often escalates quickly and it is a constant battle and the router is often switched off. They just get caught up in the moment and struggle to self regulate. No amount of calm rational discussion outside of gaming sessions seems to help. They recognise the problem.

The other issue is getting them to come down to help at meal times. Biggest single source of conflict in our house is trying to reason with two angry adrenaline filled teens when, after repeated warnings, I’ve flipped the router power switch at some mission critical moment..

15 mins later and all is sweetness and light…

rinse repeat…

What time is this happening? My lad shouts a bit when he’s on with his mates, all good shouting though, not angry. I work from home but kids are generally at school while I’m working. When they get home they to wait til we’ve finished before cranking up the guitar amp or shouting. What time are you working til? Kids need some time to live a bit as well.

You need a high rate of fire nerf gun to repeatedly hit him in the back of the head whilst he is trying to concentrate.

Violence begets violence etc.

Following this with interest as the first console is entering our house this Christmas since the Wii blew up about a decade ago. We can’t decide if a TV in his room is the best option or giving him one of the TV rooms downstairs to use. Upstairs we won’t be able to hear him but removes him from our lives. Downstairs he will take up the big TV and we can hear him. I am currently favoring the downstairs option as he has got to 17 and still doesn’t lock himself in his room, mainly due to the fact his entertainment is on the PC which is downstairs.  

I now need to figure out how I isolate the XBox wifi to cut supply, this seems beyond me capability.

Two gamers in the house. Daughter far better but son used to be very shouty. Its stopped but its the late nights. Weekends he’ll be up but not talking but its the fidgeting, going to the loo etc whilst we are trying to sleep. He’s off work with a bad chest infection, was up gaming at 3am. There will be words today.

Urgh this would really do my head in. Step son (29, moved out) was a heavy gamer but never online with mates. Daughter (16) has zero interest in gaming.  I didn’t appreciate the bullet i have dodged until now. Cheers